In the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, direct searches for the elusive Higgs boson will be conducted, as well as for physics beyond the Standard Model. The charged Higgs boson (H±) is interesting both as a part of the Higgs sector, and as a clear sign of new physics. This thesis focuses on H± searches, with H± production in top-antitop pair events, and in particular the  bW± bH±, H±→τhadν, W±→qq channel. Its potential was investigated  as  part of a larger study of the expected performance of the entire ATLAS experiment. Full simulation of the ATLAS detector and trigger was used, and all dominant systematics considered. It was shown to be the most promising H± discovery channel for mH±<mt. As hadronic τ decays are important for H± searches, their correct identification is critical. Possibilities of improving tau-jet identification in  pile-up and top-antitop pair events were investigated. Redundant or even performance-reducing variables in the default likelihood identification were identified, as were new variables showing discriminatory power. This allows for increased rejection of QCD jets in these environments, and higher robustness of the method. Before any physics studies, a commissioned and well-understood detector is required. The Lorentz angle of the ATLAS Semi-Conductor Tracker (SCT) barrel was measured using 2008 cosmic-ray data. It is an important observable for the performance of several detector aspects. Potential sources of systematics were investigated and evaluated. The Lorentz angle in the SCT barrel was measured as θL = 3.93 ± 0.03(stat) ± 0.10(syst) degrees, agreeing with the model prediction. The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is a proposed successor to the LHC. The potential for charged and heavy neutral Higgs bosons at CLIC was investigated, in terms of both discovery and precision measurement of parameters like tanβ or the Higgs masses, up to and beyond 1 TeV, which would be challenging at the LHC

The future International Linear Collider (ILC) and Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) are intended for precision measurements of phenomena discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and also for the discovery of new physics. In order to offer optimal conditions for such experiments, the new colliders must produce very-high-luminosity collisions at energies in the TeV regime. Emittance growth caused by imperfections in the main linacs is one of the factors limiting the luminosity of CLIC and ILC. In this thesis, various emittance preservation and luminosity tuning techniques have been tested and developed in order to meet the challenging luminosity requirements. Beam-based alignment was shown to be insufficient for reduction of emittance growth. Emittance tuning bumps provide an additional powerful preservation tool. After initial studies of tuning bumps designed to treat certain imperfections, a general strategy for design of optimised bumps was developed. The new bumps are optimal both in terms of emittance reduction performance and convergence speed. They were clearly faster than previous bumps and reduced emittance growth by nearly two orders of magnitude both for CLIC and ILC. Time-dependent imperfections such as ground motion and magnet vibrations also limit the performance of the colliders. This type of imperfections was studied in detail, and a new feedback system for optimal reduction of emittance growth was developed and shown to be approximately ten times more efficient than standard trajectory feedbacks. The emittance tuning bumps require fast and accurate diagnostics. The possibility of measuring emittance using a wide laserwire was introduced and simulated with promising results. While luminosity cannot be directly measured fast enough, it was shown that a beamstrahlung tuning signal could be used for efficient optimisation of a number of collision parameters using tuning bumps in the Final Focus System. Complete simulations of CLIC emittance tuning bumps, including static and dynamic imperfections and realistic tuning and emittance measurement procedures, showed that an emittance growth six times lower than that required may be obtained using these methods.

The Standard Model of particle physics successfully describes present collider data. Nevertheless, theoretical and cosmological results call for its extension. A softly broken supersymmetric completion around the TeV scale solves several of the outstanding issues. Supersymmetry requires two Higgs doublets, leading to five physical Higgs states. These include a pair of charged Higgs bosons H±, which are a generic feature of theories with multiple Higgs doublets. Using results from high-energy colliders and flavour physics, constraints are derived on the charged Higgs boson mass and couplings; both for constrained scenarios in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) with grand unification, and for general two-Higgs-doublet models. The MSSM results are compared to the projected reach for charged Higgs searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At the LHC, a light charged Higgs is accessible through top quark decay. Beyond a discovery, it is demonstrated how angular distributions sensitive to top quark spin correlations can be used to determine the structure of the H±tb coupling. The public code 2HDMC, which performs calculations in a general, CP-conserving, two-Higgs-doublet model, is introduced. In parallel to the developments at colliders, the most energetic particles ever recorded are the ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic rays. To gain more insight into their origin, new experiments are searching for UHE neutrinos. These searches require detectors of vast volume, which can be achieved by searching for coherent radio pulses arising from the Askaryan effect. The prospects of using a satellite orbiting the Moon to search for neutrino interactions are investigated, and a similar study for an Earth-based radio telescope is presented. In both cases, the method is found competitive for detection of the very highest energy neutrinos considered.

ATLAS is a multi-purpose detector which has recently started to take data at the LHC at CERN. This thesis describes the tests and calibrations of the central calorimeters of ATLAS and outlines a search for heavy top quark pair resonances.The calorimeter tests were performed before the ATLAS detector was assembled at the LHC, in such a way that particle beams of known energy were targeted at the calorimeter modules. In one of the studies presented here, modules of the hadronic barrel calorimeter, TileCal, were exposed to beams of pions of energies between 3 and 9 GeV. It is shown that muons from pion decays in the beam can be separated from the pions, and that the simulation of the detector correctly describes the muon behaviour. In the second calorimeter study, a scheme for local hadronic calibration is developed and applied to single pion test beam data in a wide range of energies, measured by the combination of the electromagnetic barrel calorimeter and the TileCal hadronic calorimeter. The calibration method is shown to provide a calorimeter linearity within 3%, and also to give a reasonable agreement between simulations and data. The physics analysis of this thesis is the proposed search for heavy top quark resonances, and it is shown that a narrow uncoloured top pair resonance, a Z', could be excluded (or discovered) at 95% CL for cross sections of 4.0±1.6 pb (in the case of M=1.0 TeV/c2) or 2.0±0.3 pb (M=2.0 TeV/c2), including systematical uncertainties in the model, assuming √s = 10 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 200 pb-1. It is also shown that an important systematical uncertainty is the jet energy scale, which further underlines the importance of hadronic calibration.

The identity of dark matter is one of the key outstanding problems in both particle and astrophysics. In this thesis, I describe a number of complementary searches for particle dark matter. I discuss how the impact of dark matter on stars can constrain its interaction with nuclei, focussing on main sequence stars close to the Galactic Centre, and on the first stars as seen through the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. The mass and annihilation cross-section of dark matter particles can be probed with searches for gamma rays produced in astronomical targets. Dwarf galaxies and ultracompact, primordially-produced dark matter minihalos turn out to be especially promising in this respect. I illustrate how the results of these searches can be combined with constraints from accelerators and cosmology to produce a single global fit to all available data. Global fits in supersymmetry turn out to be quite technically demanding, even with the simplest predictive models and the addition of complementary data from a bevy of astronomical and terrestrial experiments; I show how genetic algorithms can help in overcoming these challenges. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Accepted. Paper 6: Submitted.

This thesis is concerned with experimental investigations of properties of the top quark and processes involving this particle. In the first part of the thesis, the first determination of the electric charge of the top quark is presented. The measurement was made using top quark pair events produced in proton-antiproton collisions recorded by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. It is based on the reconstruction of the charge of the top quarks decay products from the dominant decay to a W boson and a b-quark. The method uses a jet charge algorithm, calibrated with data, to discriminate between b- and antib-quark jets. A constrained kinematic fit is also performed to resolve the ambiguities of the pairing of the top quark decay products and to extract the top quark electric charge. The result is in good agreement with the Standard Model top quark electric charge of 2e/3 and an upper limit of 0.8 at 90\% confidence level on the fraction of exotic quarks with charge 4e/3 in the data sample is obtained. The second part of the thesis concerns the estimation of the top quark pair background to searches for new physics, such as supersymmetry, with the ATLAS  experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. These searches will require a robust estimation of standard model backgrounds in order to make any claims of discovery or to exclude models of new physics. For searches with a final state signature characterized by two isolated charged leptons, multiple jets and large missing transverse energy the largest source of background is expected to be top quark pairs with leptonic decay of the two W bosons from the top quarks in the event. A data-driven method to estimate this contribution based on full kinematic reconstruction of the top quark pair events is studied using simulated proton-proton collisions. It is shown that the method is capable of estimating the top quark pair background to within 12% using data corresponding to approximately 1fb-1. The systematic uncertainty is of the order of 20% and, depending on the model, the contamination of signal events can potentially be large. / QC 20100730